Alexander of Aphrodisias on Determinism, Causation and the Universe.pptx
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
0 likes•15 views
DE FATO XXII-XXV, XXX-XXXII CAUSATION AND UNITY OF THE UNIVERSE; DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE AND PROPHECY The argument from XXII to XXV: The unity of a rational and intelligent Nature, according to determinists, preserves the temporal sequence between antecedent and subsequent events, rendering the anterior things causes of those after them, with no exception. Every occurrence must have some consequences, acting as a cause to its effects. Furthermore, there is always a necessity in the eventuation of the results of a series of facts, devoid of missing linkages. In general, everything in the universe has a cause; nothing is causeless, nothing can escape the deterministic order. In conclusion, fate, nature and reason are identified by the Stoics as God, which is omnipresent (XXII), in an unbroken causal chain. In the next chapter Alexander dismisses the deterministic premises one by one. An unmarried man is an obvious instance that not everything is necessary to be a cause. Other things cannot act as a cause because they are negligible in size, drowsy, or extinct (XXIII). The question if there are causeless things is overruled by Alexander, but this acceptation of causation is not followed by the assumption that everything that exists is necessary predetermined. Strictly speaking a cause is either necessary or in terms of likelihood (XXIV). In summary: Every cause is either (1) necessary, or (2) it is a cause for the most cases likely to occur, as in the physics, or (3) it is accidental, a result of luck, fortuitous. Time sequence is not a proper criterion of causality: temporal priority and anteriority are not sufficient for the identification of causal relations. Winter and summer are both caused “by the motion and the rotation of the divine body and the inclination along the ecliptic.” There is also a first cause, although rejected by the determinists. The postulation of a first cause is necessary, because of the need to justify (1) the generation of its effects and (2) causation. Knowledge is acquaintance with the first causes (XXV). The argument from XXX to XXII: The alleged foreknowledge of gods cannot be an argument in favor of determinism, because the future always presupposes a degree of contingency. Furthermore, it is false to allow for the possibility of really impossible things, only because gods should have foreknowledge of them (XXX). The myth of Oedipus offers a suitable example of divine prophecy that “predetermined” the fates of Laius and Oedipus, as the determinists would say. The objection is that the outcome of this prophecy was totally “unholy and impious” (XXXI). Gods cannot improve their wisdom, while wise men can. Gods and wise men, however, are free to choose to act in concordance with virtue, in a way conducive to the preservation of the universe (XXXII).
Recommended
More Related Content
Similar to Alexander of Aphrodisias on Determinism, Causation and the Universe.pptx
Similar to Alexander of Aphrodisias on Determinism, Causation and the Universe.pptx (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Alexander of Aphrodisias on Determinism, Causation and the Universe.pptx
- 1. Leiden University MA Philosophy and History of Science Basil Evangelidis
- 2. 342 BC Aristotle tutors Alexander, crown prince of Macedon 335 BC Aristotle returns to Athens, founds Peripatetic School in Lyceum. Zeno born in Citium (Cyprus). 323-322 BC Alexander the Great dies; Aristotle leaves Athens; Theophrastus becomes the leader of the Peripatetic Lyceum 280-c.232 BC Aristarchus of Samos proposes the heliocentric hypothesis c. 50 BC Andronicus of Rhodes fl. (Peripatetic); revived Aristotelian studies; arranged the order of his natural philosophy writings c. 200 AD Alexander of Aphrodisias (commentator on Aristotle) Time Points
- 4. Iulia Domna (170-217 CE) Lucius Septimius Severus Augustus (146-211 CE)
- 5. Philosophical embassy The Athenian embassy of the philosophers Carneades (Academic), Critolaus (Peripatetic) and Diogenes (Stoic) to Rome in 155 BC and the embassy of the Rhodians and Attalus I in 201 BC. The cities Cyzicus, Miletus, Pergamum, Athens and the remote peninsula of Crimea (47 BC) were sending embassies for their autonomy and in order to avoid the fate of the cities destroyed by Demetrius the Conqueror.
- 6. Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη˙ εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω “… All cannot play the king, and a host of leaders is no wise thing. Let us have but the one leader, the one true king… and command, to rule his people wisely… ” (Iliad B 188-210). Alexander of Aphrodisias repeats this message in his commentary on the Aristotelian Topics (III 1,14), when he explains the deliberation of the wise or the good man or the correct law or the significant ones. The good man in accordance to the ethics is brave, wise in concordance with the logic, and moderate (σώφρων).
- 7. μείρομαι > εἵμαρμαι > εἱμαρμένη The ancient terms were μοῖρα and αἷσα, the deities Μοῖραι, while εἱμαρμένη was used from the fourth century. The verb, according to R.J. Cunliffe’s Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, is μείρομαι (3 sing. pf. ἔμμορε Α 278, Ο 189: ε 335, λ 338; 3 plupf. pass. εἵμαρτο Φ 281: ε 312, ω 34), namely “to receive a share of, take one's part of” (with genit.: ἥμισυ μείρεο τιμῆς Ι 616), or in pf. “to have one's share of, to have, hold, be entitled to” (with genit.: τιμῆς Α 278, Ο 189: ε λ 338), or in pass. in impers. Construction “to be allotted as one's portion, be fated” (λευγαλέῳ με θανάτῳ εἵμαρτο ἁλῶναι: it was the fate assigned me, Φ = ε 312. Cf. ω 34).
- 8. Krater by Euphronios (painter) and Euxitheos (potter). Sarpedon’s body carried by Hypnos and Thanatos (Sleep and Death), while Hermes watches.
- 9. De Fato (XXII) The unity of a rational and intelligent Nature, according to determinists, preserves the temporal sequence between antecedent and subsequent events, rendering the anterior things causes of those after them, with no exception. Every occurrence must have some consequences, acting as a cause to its effects without exemptions. Furthermore, there is always a necessity in the eventuation of the results of a series of facts, devoid of missing linkages. In general, everything in the universe has a cause; nothing is causeless, nothing can escape the deterministic order.
- 10. De Fato (XXIII) In this chapter Alexander dismisses the deterministic premises. An unmarried man is an obvious instance that not everything is necessary to be a cause. Other things cannot act as a cause because they are negligible in size, drowsy, or extinct; “just as not all that has potential exercises it, so not everything that might become a cause either is already a cause or has become one or will become one” (XXIII).
- 11. De Fato XXIV Every cause is either (1) necessary, or (2) for the most cases likely to happen, as in the physics, or (3) accidental, a result of luck, fortuitous.
- 12. MAGNETISM The magnet attracts because iron desires it: “by desire for that which it lacks itself but the magnet possesses” (Quaestiones 2.23).
- 13. DETERMINISM “What does determinism profess? It professes that those parts of the universe already laid down absolutely appoint and decree what the other parts shall be. The future has no ambiguous possibilities hidden in its womb: the part we call the present is compatible with only one totality” (James, 1897: 150). The Stoic philosopher Chrysippus (SVF 2.1000) tried to depict the problem of determinism with the comparison between the movements of a cylinder and a cone, where the shape of the solids and not the external source of motion, is the primal cause of the selected path.
- 14. De Fato XXV Time sequence is not a proper criterion of causality: temporal priority and anteriority are not sufficient for the identification of causal relations. Winter and summer are both caused “by the motion and the rotation of the divine body and the inclination along the ecliptic.”
- 15. ARISTOTLE defined time as the numbered aspect of motion (Physics 4.11 219b5), indicated most clearly by the movement of the heavenly sphere, though not to be identified with this (Physics 4.14 223b23)… Alexander to identify time in this sense the continuous numerable movement of the outermost heavenly sphere (Sharples, 1999: pp. 156-157).
- 16. Sundial found at Dion, Greece
- 18. ARISTOTLE contended that strict necessity is limited to the motions of the stars, while in the sublunary realm chance plays a significant role (Phys. II, 4–6). Coincidence and contingency is a human and natural possibility, as long as external factors intervene, ἀπὸ τύχης and ἀπὸ ταὐτομάτου (Phys. II, 4; Met., VII, 7) respectively. This discrimination against the sublunary sphere was meant to be ruled out by the theory of providence, developed by Alexander of Aphrodisias.
- 19. First cause There is also a first cause, although rejected by the determinists. The postulation of a first cause is necessary, because of the need to justify (1) the generation of its effects, and (2) causation. Knowledge is acquaintance with the first causes (De Fato XXV).
- 20. ARISTOTLE was not a fatalist: “… it is necessary that he who lives shall one day die… But whether he dies by disease or by violence, is not yet determined, but depends on the happening of something else” (Meta. 1027b, 10-24). The Stoic CHRYSIPPOS, however, considered fate (εἱμαρμένη) as a certain natural and coherent coordination of the universe throughout eternity, whereby a set of things is perpetually derived from another set, and engages with another, in an inviolable sequence (Gellius, NA 7.2.3). All the past events took place, the present ones happen, and the future ones will occur according to fate, which is a pneumatic power, the reason of the universe (Stobaeus, Ecl. I 79.1-12), always shaped by deliberate choice (προαίρεσις) and responsibility:
- 21. De Fato XXX The alleged foreknowledge of gods cannot be an argument in favor of determinism, because the future always presupposes a degree of contingency. Furthermore, it is false to allow for the possibility of really impossible things, only because gods should have foreknowledge of them. Predictions have an obviously contingent character, because they refer to the future. The possibility of impossible things, however, would erase determinism. On the other side, regarding the insistence on possible future events only, one should have to show that these are predictable by gods.
- 22. De Fato XXXI The myth of Oedipus
- 23. De Fato XXXII Gods cannot improve their wisdom, while wise men can. Gods and wise men, however, are free to choose to act in concordance with virtue, in a way conducive to the preservation of the universe.
- 24. THE ROLE OF GOD IN PERIPATETIC PHILOSOPHY was shaped through the influence of the seminal text of Plato’s Republic. The indispensably higher task of the ideal republic, namely to educate the youth in order to become conscious citizens and guardians, should represent God as a reality that is not responsible for the misfortunes of human affairs; God is good and not hurtful, God does not act in an evil manner and does not deceive us. God’s beneficial reality is the cause of well-being: Nor yet… is it proper to say in any case -what is indeed untrue- that gods wage war against gods, and intrigue and fight among themselves… For a child cannot discriminate what is allegory and
- 25. Supplementary Sources about Fate and Providence in Universe • Mantissa XXII and XXV • Quaestio 1.4 • Quaestio 2.3 • On Cosmos • On Providence
- 26. The Aristotelian Conception of God The critic against Anaxagoras (Phys. VIII, 5) offers an instance of the Aristotelian conception of God as First Mover. In Metaphysics A 3, Aristotle states that Anaxagoras affirmed that mind (νους) is the cause of the system of the world, as in animals so in nature, of the entire harmony of it. Anaxagoras proved therefore that he was of sober temperament (Meta. A 7), but he did not grasp the correspondence between the efficient and the final cause. The twelfth book of the Metaphysics (Λ) is regarded as the main exposition of the notion of God, that is to say, “a certain substance that is Immovable and Eternal” (Meta. Λ, 1). In De Caelo I, 4, Aristotle suggests that God and Nature do nothing in vain, nothing that has not its use.
Editor's Notes
- Homer, Hesiod, Parmenides, and Plato offer some of the first Greek accounts on fate. The Homeric hero Achilles and his death is one of most well-known instances of personalized destiny in Greek mythology. According to the author (Bruns, 1887 and 1892: p. 164), the book contains the Aristotelian opinion on fate, as it is approached by the contemporary philosophers who follow his theory and have the responsibility to interpret it.
- The Julio-Claudian dynasty from 27 BC to 68 AD (Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero) considered themselves as offspring of the Goddess Aphrodite (Ragia, 2009). The city stayed on the side of Rome during the Mithridatic wars It is believed that between 250 and 260 Aphrodisias became the capital-city of the region Caria and Phrygia. After Diocletian it was the capital of Caria only. About the 7th century the city was renamed to Stavroupolis, which means the city of the cross.
- At the times of Septimius Severus and Caracalla, in 190 AD, Julia Domna of the Seleucids gathered around her philosophers and sophists: Philostratus the biographer, the lawyers Papinian, Ulpianus and Paul, the historians Cassius Dio and Marius Maximus, the physician Galen and many other intellectuals and poets. The book Περὶ Εἱμαρμένης (De Fato), might have been written between 198 AD, when Septimius Severus shared his throne as co-emperor with his son Caracalla, and 209, when Geta rules jointly as co-emperor with Caracalla (Thillet, 1984).
- It is doubted whether he was the head of the Lyceum, because that is supposed to be ceased from existence, after Sulla’s capture of Athens in 86 BC (Sharples, 1983: p. 15). In such tormented times, philosophers were undertaking the diplomatic representation of their cities, as it is shown by...
- The purposes of the philosophical intervention into politics were bounded together with the interests of the local communities for peace and stability. At the end of the Metaphysics Λ, Aristotle indicates that the beings do not want to be governed badly. He supplements that polyarchy is not good, because one should be the government. He stresses the superiority of one rather than the many who govern power. He explains his conclusion with the Homeric quotation: “Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη˙ εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω”.
- Side A of the so-called “Euphronios krater”, Attic red-figured calyx-krater signed by Euxitheos (potter) and Euphronios (painter), ca. 515 BC. H. 45.7 cm (18 in.); D. 55.1 cm (21 11/16 in.). Formerly in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (L.2006.10); Returned to Italy and exhibited in Rome as of January, 2008. What is significant is the belief that human fate in war as inescapable according to prophecies: “[Zeus] poured bloody drops earthwards, honoring his own [beloved] son, whom Patroclus was soon to destroy in fertile Troy far from his homeland… And Sarpedon, son of Zeus, the best of us is gone, for Zeus cannot even save his own child… And Zeus fixed his gleaming eye on the desperate conflict, gazing down and reflecting on Patroclus’ fate, whether as they struggled over godlike Sarpedon noble Hector should kill him with his sword, and strip the armour from him, or whether more men should die first, in the toils of battle” (Iliad: XVI).
- There is an infinite order in causal associations that permits nothing extrinsic to this singularity. Moreover, the causes may be various, comprising a swarm of causes, while some of them are initiating, some contributing, some sustaining, some constituting, etc. In these frames of reference, when all circumstances are similar, no contingency is allowed, but always certain causes are followed by definite consequences. In conclusion, fate, nature and reason are identified by the Stoics as God, which is omnipresent (XXII), in an unbroken causal chain.
- The question if there are causeless things is overruled by Alexander, but this acceptation of causation is not followed by the assumption that everything that exists is necessary predetermined: A child has always a father, but it is not completely sure that it will become a parent itself. The rule is anyway that every event has a cause. Nevertheless, there exist causes that are not proper to their effects nor precedent, but rather accidental. Strictly speaking a cause is either necessary or in terms of likelihood (XXIV)… In Quaestio 2.5 Alexander contends that necessity is a wider concept than fate. Either assent and consent, or dissent and disagreement over what we have control to do it or to avoid it, are the only possible attitudes that are left open for deliberating, if one accepts the validity of determinism. Even if all things are come to be in accordance with fate, the deliberator may set the question for the correctness of a matter of choice (De Fato XII).
- The systematic perspectives of his peripatetic philosophy are evident in his physics: Empedocles says that the iron is borne towards the stone by the effluvia emanating from both and because the pores of the stone are fitted to receive the effluvium of the iron. The effluvium of the stone then expels the air from the pores of the iron. Once the air is expelled, the iron itself is carried along by the abundant flow of the effluvium. Again, when the effluvium of the iron moves towards the pores of the stone, which are fitted to receive it, the iron begins to move with it (Quaestiones 2.23). Alexander studied in depth the problem of the vision (Sharples, 2005a). He refuted the Stoic theory of the impenetrability of the bodies (Groisard, 2013). He also described the process of the distillation of water. Aristotle mentioned it in Meteorologica (II 3, 358b16).
- The terms “event,” ”causation,” and “prediction” are vague and controversial concepts. Many-valued logic was developed by Lukasiewicz in an attempt to confront the problems raised by the concept of contradiction in Aristotelian logic and to resolve the inconsistency of determinism in the cases of creativity, responsibility, and freedom. The introduction of a third logical value, namely possibility, which can be ascribed to sentences about future events. Many valued logic might be called non-Chrysippean, because Chrysippus suggested the universality of the law of excluded middle, whereas Aristotle had doubts about its applicability to sentences about the future. The origins of many-valued logic may be found in the Middle Ages, and the works of the philosophers Peirce and Vasiliev (Wolenski, 1998). Cicero (De fato 41) states that Chrysippus distinguished two kinds of causes: (1) perfect and principal, (2) auxilliary and proximate: if everything takes place by fate, it does indeed follow that everything takes place from antecedent causes, but not from principal and perfect but auxiliary and proximate causes. And if these causes themselves are not in our power, it does not follow that desire also is not in our power. On the other hand if we were to say that all things happen from perfect and principal causes, it would then follow that, as those causes are not in our power, desire would not be in our power either (Cicero, De fato 41).
- In De generatione et corruptione II 10, 336a15-337a33 Aristotle explains how (1) the continuity of the primary heavenly movement of the sphere of the fixed stars and (2) the motion of the coming-to-be and passing away on the ecliptic combine together (Fazzo & Wiesner, 1993).
- Free choice, accidents, and chance are the realities that made Aristotle to reject determinism. He stated that “chance also and spontaneity are reckoned among causes: many things are said both to be and to come to be as a result of chance and spontaneity” (Phys. II 4). A logical argument, however, is that the heavenly sphere could not have arisen spontaneously, because an olive tree comes from a seed and a man from another. Aristotle distinguishes between the determinate causes of a thing and the indeterminate causes that are incidental. That which is per se cause of the effect is determinate, but the incidental cause is indeterminable, “for the possible attributes of an individual are innumerable” («άπειρα γαρ εν τω ενί συμβαίνει,» Phys. II 5). Chance is an incidental cause in intentional action. Strictly speaking chance is not the cause of anything. Chance is something contrary to the rule. Chance occurs in indefinite many ways. Thought and nature retain a priority over chance, because they operate in a teleological manner (Phys. II 6).
- In Aristotle, there is always a cooperation between efficient and final cause. The first cause imparting motion, αίτιον ποιητικόν και κινητικόν, namely the first principles and the efficient cause, are the subject of the most exact sciences (Alexander, 1989: pp. 30-31). This is a reference to the Prime Mover in Physics 8, and to the separate and eternal substance of God in Metaphysics 12.7, as an unmoved mediator, energy and essence of the circular heavenly movement, on account of being beautiful, desirable and intelligible. The intellect, therefore, moves because of the intelligible. An additional note refers to the material cause, distinguishing between matter (υλη) and substrate (υποκείμενον) with the remark that substrate has a greater extension than matter, insomuch as the divine bodies do not consist of matter. One of the causes is the substance and the essence, η ουσία και το τι ην είναι (Meta. A 3), which is the form, as Alexander (1989, p. 41) notes. The substance is specifically important for the needs of categorisation, for instance, in the case of the zoological-taxonomies (643a27). The two other causes, the efficient and the final, are opposed to each other as the former is the origin and the beginning of motion, and the latter the end, τέλος, of all coming-to-be and movement (Alexander, 1989, p. 44).
- … because man is allowed to adjust them, being an organic element of an ordinate set. This approach has been described as a combination of determinism and compatibilism, while fate was identified with providence, god’s will, nature, active principle, a power of breath (Bobzien, 1998). As we have already pointed out, Chrysippus tried to escape from commitment to necessity (Alex. Aphr. Fat. 10; Cic. Fat. 12-16; August. City of God V 9 and 10; Epict. Diss. II 19.1-5; Plu. Stoic. Rep. 1055 de; Plu. Epitome I 27; Aet. Plac. I 27 in Diels, Doxographici Graeci, p. 322). He suggested that the form “If p, then q” can be written as a negated conjuction or material implication: “Not both (p and not q),” where the necessary link is eliminated. Frede (1974) and Sambursky (1959) pointed out that the material implications refer to empirical and not logical statements. Cleanthes tried to escape determinism by denying that what is past and true is necessary, while Chrysippus preferred to deny that the impossible does not follow from the possible (Epict. Diss. 2.19 1-5; Alex. Aphr. in Apr. 177). Cleanthes is more successful according to Prior (1955; 1967) and Sorabji (1980). In general, the opponents of the Stoics suggested that the effort to deny necessity renders events causeless. The Stoics tried to implement in this case a fortuitous cause, an internal cause, or a mere necessary condition.
- The myth of Oedipus offers a suitable example of divine prophecy that “predetermined” the fates of Laius and Oedipus, as the determinists would say. The objection is that the outcome of this prophecy was totally “unholy and impious.” Fate and providence have nothing in common with such absurdities, as with the myths and tragic poems about Oedipus, Thyestes and Medea (XXXI).
- Gods cannot improve their wisdom, while wise men can. Gods and wise men, however, are free to choose to act in concordance with virtue, in a way conducive to the preservation of the universe (XXXII).
- … that is, if the future guardians of our state are to deem it a most disgraceful thing to quarrel lightly with another…But if there is any possibility of persuading them, that to quarrel with one’s fellow is a sin of which no member of the state was ever guilty, such ought to be rather the language held to our children from the first, by old men and old women, and all elderly persons… … and whatever at that age is adopted as a matter of belief, has a tendency to become fixed and indelible; and therefore, we ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue... Do you think that God is a wizard, and likely to appear for special purposes in different forms at different times, sometimes actually assuming such forms, and altering his own person into a variety of shapes, and sometimes deceiving us and making us believe that a transformation has taken place… (Plato, Republic II 378). It is clear, therefore, that the postulation of an Unmoved Mover is related to the revised platonic and peripatetic conception of God, as beauty and goodness that “abides simply and without variation in his own form” (Plato, Republic II 381).
- Mantissa XXII: Alexander makes here a certain reference on Aristotle’s Metaphysics (E 2 1026b13ff.), where the philosopher establishes the existence of motion without a cause. According to Alexander (De anima mantissa, 171, 20-5) proper causation is linked to what happens always and everlastingly in the same way, as Sorabji (1980) suggests. The heavenly bodies dispose the higher form of desire, which is identified as rational choice, will and intellect. The true will is exemplified as love of the good that exists in God alone. The divine bodies are moved by desire for the first good as perceived by the intellect, not passively but with an active impulse (On Cosmos, 11-13). Nothing exists without providence, everything is fulfilled by God and God permeates all creatures. Therefore, the existence of all things is dependent on the decision of Gods, insomuch as they would care for the things and would guide each of these. The correctness of this conception is proved by the evidence of the situation. Thus the independence of the natural occurrences from an eternal and unchanged order would dispute their randomness, because random events would be subject to no regularity at all, but rarely and every time differently, they pass off dependent, in their form, on various states of affairs (Ruland, 1976: p. 6). In Quaestio 2.3 Alexander contends that the regular and eternal motion of the heavens and the power that emanates from it is the cause holding the world together.
- The capacity of the first cause to move, while being itself immobile, is combined with touch of the moved, but the moved remains untouched (De Gen. et Corr. I, 6). Nature always strives for the better, in all cases. “God fulfilled the perfection of the universe by making coming-to-be uninterrupted: for the greatest possible coherence would thus be secured to existence, because that ‘coming-to-be should itself come-to-be perpetually’ is the closest approximation to eternal being” (De Gen. et Corr. II, 10). According to the doctrine of Aristotle, the pure spirits and the heavenly spheres are creations of God. In Metaphysics K 2, Aristotle states that if there is some substance and principle in nature, which is one substance for everything, the same principle for the eternal and the corruptible creatures, it a remarkable question how can this essence be common for the eternal and the contingent beings. If there is this kind of nature, namely separated and immobile, this would be the first and the most prominent principle (Meta. Γ, 1: αιτία του όντος η ον; Meta. Λ, 8: η αρχή και το πρώτον των όντων; Meta. Λ, 10; Λ, 5: πρώτον εντελεχεία). In other words: “Cognition of cognition,” “pure intellect,” “entelechy,” “first move,” “deity”. Through the divine power, which acts upon the sublunary world, the human beings became rational creatures. Moreover, inspiration, insight and premonition are demonstrations of divine providence.